one of the wildest things about the dirty bomb north discourse is that she convinced someone else not to do it after they set it up without her input so that she could put the decision in markus's hands. and yet still this is somehow an indictment against her.
"North, she's happy if the dirty bomb goes off" There have been various comments over the years like "North is selfish" "she's a narcissist" "North only thinks about herself and her revenge, she doesn't care about her people" "North is manipulative" "North doesn't care about Markus."
"Others save Markus while North stands still like a statue, never saving him." In addition to the complacency over her deaths, a YouTube video about her deaths even calling it "fanservice"
which you'd expect from bastards like Micah Bell, Sam Trapani, Adam Smasher etc North receives almost that kind of hate, maybe even worse exaggerated (where those characters are better written, however) when she should be a morally gray character, with flaws but also with positive qualities.
People create redemption arcs for Gavin, yet they let North be as she is, preferring to see her as an evil bitch with no positive qualities.
Yes, Gavin is a bit of a character, a blank slate where people can fill those gaps, deepen that character, and yet there are people who say North has no personality other than being violent/bitchy, but it seems like it's better seen that way...to hate her now, I know it's a hot button, maybe even irrational, but it seems like people don't care about her character, how to improve it or anything else, they just hate her, but otherwise...she can just end up in the trash.
Years ago, there was a discussion where it was said that her character would be better appreciated if she had less screen time, meaning less time to get to know her, to deepen her, which at most would have made her tolerable. It could be translated as: "I don't care about this character, so I'd rather she had less screen time" than improve her, basically. Jesus, I can't get it out of my head that if the scene where Josh blames Markus after Markus's death had been North instead, how much more shitstorm would have ensued over her, and it would have been one of the most-listed scenes in the fandom.
All of this is rooted in sexism. The fact that people would rather give Gavin Reedâthe most one dimensional caricature of a bigot in the showâmore depth than the woman already created with depth is mind boggling. Every excuse about violence or blandness or lack of personality is directly contradicted by the fact that these people are willing to give more leeway to the character with three scenes of one note hatred over North.
Not only that, but pretty much all readings of her character listed above are factually incorrect. Yet they have no reason to actually study her character in any meaningful capacity because they're physically incapable of imagining a rich inner life for a woman as opposed to a man.
"Others save Markus while North stands still like a statue, never saving him."
As someone who has played every single possible ending and branch off-scene in the entire game multiple times over, the above statement is a bald faced fucking lie. Which is easily proven if you allow Markus to fail at pretty much anything. It's ridiculous that people not only over-exaggerate the things she has done to astronomical degrees, but that they also make shit up about her that doesn't even exist. These people's entire understanding of North's character relies on their unquestioned misogyny and inability to examine their own biases.
Even though I agree that there are interpretations of things that are exaggerated or not there to make her worse than she is, it may be superficial but I don't think that misogyny is the problem or at least not so much since I've seen several girls hate her, not just boys, and they should be the first to understand North's character and how she feels, since these are issues that should concern them even today unfortunately, yet several women continue to hate her, of course I would also blame the fandom especially in the early years where there was a shitty fear about North's character, belittling her to make Simon better than her in comparison
but I would blame David Cage and the developers for how they treated her character badly, how she is framed in the narrative etc. Regardless of gender, a male North would have the same problems and I don't think he would have been loved, at least not that much, there would still be hate


















